Thank you for supporting the Shirley Leventhal Scholarship in Nursing so we can continue to provide meaningful opportunities for our students and community.
Shirley Leventhal epitomized a spirit of adventure and an endless joie de vivre. As a child, her first dream was to become a bareback rider in the circus, but she quickly gravitated to wanting to be a nurse. Leaving the family farm in rural Manitoba for Winnipeg at age 17, she began her nurse’s training at St. Boniface Hospital.
Always one ready to help both her patients and her family, after becoming a nurse she moved to Chicago to support a recently widowed brother with his small children as well as working full-time in two of the city’s hospitals. Later, after a two year’s hiatus in the Middle East, she returned to Chicago to embark on a totally different career.
Fearless, ready to try anything even as a single woman in a less tolerant era, she opened a liquor store, despite the city’s fairly recent history as a haven for gangsters. Here, she met her husband, an erudite refugee from Eastern Europe, earning his living as a liquor salesman, who walked into her store one day.
Eventually moving to Los Angeles, she continued her adventurous explorations into new territory including taking flying lessons and traveling to many remote parts of the world. Her openness, good humor, determination to pursue her interests all while helping others, exemplify the possibility of transforming dreams into reality and in the process inspiring others to do the same.
For donations by check, please make your check payable to:
The Santa Monica College Foundation
1900 Pico Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
On the memo line, please write: Shirley Leventhal Scholarship